[TN-Bird] Two Western Grebes at Pace Point

Thanks to Mike Todd's posts, we decided it was time to see the lifer Western 
Grebe and complete our sightings of the USA grebes.  Wednesday we went through 
the Duck River Unit on our way to Paris and were disappointed at the small 
numbers of ducks seeable from the main refuge road.  Best birds there were a 
single Ruddy Turnstone, 6 beautiful Wilson's Snipes, and the huge flock of 
Rusty Blackbirds in a residential yard near the refuge.  We arrived at Britton 
Ford about 2 p.m. and although duck numbers were not large we had a good 
variety - Mallard, Gadwall, Scaup, American Wigeon, Green-winged Teal, Northern 
Shoveler, Bufflehead, one male Pintail, one immature male Wood, and one 
possible Mottled. Lots of Horned Grebes and a few Common Loons were also 
present.  Northern Harriers put on quite a show in the nearby fields with one 
female teaching a juvenile how to hunt holding our attention the longest.  Just 
before dark we were pretty sure both a Western and Red-necked Grebe came in but 
the light was too poor to get a confirmation look at the bill on either of 
them.  Our frustration at not being able to get a positive identification was 
calmed by the repeated call of a Common Loon.  A Wood Thrush song may be the 
clearest and sweetest of all but something in the Common Loon call is real soul 
music.  
Today we went directly to Pace Point, stopping only at the old pumping station 
to search for the LeConte's Sparrow but found instead only several hundred 
seeds that wanted to leave home and promptly stuck to our pants and needed a 
lot of time and effort to remove.  At the first area to view the water on Pace 
Point both the Western and Red-necked Grebe were easy to find as they were near 
the shore in a huge raft of Scaup and Ruddy Ducks.  But the strong winds 
apparently had caused most of the birds to leave or relocate to calmer waters 
as there were few birds viewable from the east side of the point.  Rocky Point 
had just a couple of Common Loons and a few Scaup and Ruddies, so we went back 
to Pace again and this time were really elated to find two Western Grebes 
side-by-side in one scope view!  Birding is so strange sometimes.  In our trip 
to Washington State in the fall of 2001 we found our lifer Clark's Grebe and 
had a couple of possible Westerns but could never get the kind of look adequate 
for counting a lifer. Now here we were seeing two Western Grebes up close in 
Tennessee!  Thanks, Mike, for the assist.  Duck numbers increased at Pace as we 
ate lunch and watched but never numbered more than a few hundred, mostly Scaup, 
Ruddy, Mallard, Gadwall, with about a dozen American Wigeon and 6 Common 
Goldeneyes.  Two stately Bald Eagles flying at low altitude sent the huge raft 
of American Coots and the dozens of Horned Grebes diving and swimming 
frantically.  On the return trip the bay east of the old pumping station was 
filled with thousands of ducks but we found nothing new in several scope scans. 
 

Tommy & Virginia Curtis
Smithville, TN
DeKalb County
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